The safety of thousands of lorry drivers is today in the spotlight, after the national Road Haulage Association joined forces with the UK’s biggest electricity distributor.

UK Power Networks’ award-winning campaign ‘Be Bright, Stay Safe’ asks people to pledge to work safely around electricity equipment and reduce the risk of accidents.

This week it won Campaign of the Year category at the Safety and Health Excellence Awards in Birmingham.The latest organisation to join up, the Road Haulage Association (RHA), is the only UK trade association dedicated solely to the needs of UK road transport operators. It is the voice of the road haulage profession representing more than 7,000 member companies operating around 250,000 HGVs.Tipper vehicles risk coming into contact with overhead power lines if drivers don’t watch out for them, and load or unload their cargo too close.Touching high voltage cables can be fatal. Accidental contact with live overhead power lines kills people and causes many serious injuries every year. People are also harmed when a person or object gets too close to a line and a flashover occurs. Clorise Duporte, a safety advisor at UK Power Networks which owns and runs overhead electricity networks across the East and South East of England, said: “Safety is our number one priority and this includes ensuring that members of the public are not injured by coming into contact with our network.

“It’s fantastic to have the support of the only UK trade association dedicated solely to the needs of road transport operators, and know that this will help save lives in future.”

RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said: “We take driver safety extremely seriously and we welcome any measures that can be taken to raise awareness of the dangers of operating near overhead power lines.”